1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to flat panel displays. More specifically, embodiments of the invention relate to a backlight assembly and a display device having lower profile and/or reduced weight.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (LCD) does not emit light itself and, thus, requires an additional light source. Accordingly, an LCD includes a backlight assembly provided below its liquid crystal panel, where an image is displayed using light emitted from the backlight assembly. Recently, light emitting diodes (LEDs) are being recognized as light sources for such backlight assemblies.
In other words, since light emitting diodes (LEDs) have advantages such as low power consumption, high color reproduction and the like under the same luminance conditions, demand for and production of products having light emitting diodes (LEDs) as light sources are gradually increasing.
A backlight assembly including a circuit substrate having light emitting diodes as light sources can realize high image quality due to low power consumption and high luminance. However, in case of a direct-type backlight assembly, as the size of a display device increases, the number of light emitting diodes increases, thereby increasing the price of the product.
Meanwhile, light emitted from the LEDs of a backlight assembly may be incident on an optical member such as a lens array substrate (lens integrated plate (LIP)), which guides and more uniformly diffuses the light emitted from the light emitting diodes (which are typically arranged separately from each other at regular intervals). To accomplish such light diffusion, the optical member typically should be of at least some sufficient thickness. However, the thickness of the optical member occupies a large proportion of the overall thickness of the backlight assembly. Accordingly, the optical member may make it difficult to make the display device slim, and reduce efficiency due to an increase in traveling distance of light.